I came across an interesting article last night written by a blogger I have never read before. Her name is Kelly Livesay and she made a very interesting call to action. In her post she declares that she is sick of all the different social networking sites out there; facebook, myspace, twitter, social networks for dogs, cats, you name it and there’s a network. The reason I found this intriguing is because I woke up this morning to find Renee’s post documenting even more social networking sites. Kelly suggests that we should just ditch all of them and keep only a blog and a twitter account. The blog will contain all your links, videos, etc and each time you post something you notify all your friends on twitter. I am not sure where I stand on this one and I want to open up the dialog to see what everyone else thinks. I personally think there are way too many social networks and I am sick of signing up for new services. However, I do not know if I would ditch everything for simply a blog and a twitter account (hell most my friends don’t even know what twitter is). An even simpler alternative would be to ditch everything for just Facebook and use it as a hub for all my information and sharing (which is what I already do, until recently). Facebook is essentially twitter built on top of a blog (at its most basic level). So what does everyone else think? Is this social networking craze getting too niche or do they actually add value? What do you think?
Personally, I’d dump twitter as it annoys the hell out of me! I do see your point about all the social networking sites, though I would say it does make more sense to have a site per subject rather than just one big platform.
See I would agree with you. However, unless that site has some very unique functionality that truly adds value to the community I do not see why they couldn’t just start a group on one of the existing networking sites
Shel Holtz just recently posted a resource list of information discussing all things social media related; stats, demographics…
http://blog.holtz.com/index.php/social_media_resources
The problem with Facebook is that any content you upload becomes theirs to own and license in perpetuity (assuming you held the rights in the first place). That drunken photo of you in Kingston’s Mardi Gras 3 years ago? Yep, they can do what they like with it — syndicate it to the tabloids, license it to newsites, etc. And if this scares the hell out of you (I know it does me), and you delete your photos… too late! They keep a copy. For as long as they want.
Check out the terms and conditions on the site. Sure, you must have read them — you DID read them before clicking Accept, right?
From a practical networking standpoint, the diverse array of options creates a destination overload for the typical user. I believe that typical users of social media only have the time, energy and capacity to manage one or two virtual networks, often leading to spheres of exclusivity between communities.
An example: I recently ran into an individual that I had met while in university who had just begun managing the hiring department at a major consumer products organization. Pretty useful person to have in a network. She asked me if I was on linkedin. I said no. I asked her if she was on facebook. She said no.
Unless one of us takes the effort to establish a new, moderately redundant persona in one of these destinations, I won’t see her again until the next time I catch her in the dairy section of the grocery store.
I think that this problem will become more pervasive as online community penetration grows and more options become available. Ultimately, I think that a common hub will prevail, with the winning destination being the first one to achieve critical mass (i.e. facebook) and combine in with flexible functionality that allow users to manage their own social community experiences.
The main issue I see with having to jump on a completely different network is the issue of reputation. The same goes for any physical network also. When you first step foot in the door nobody has any idea who you are and you must play the ‘I know this person game’. This is exactly the same on online social networks, however the immediate benefits may not be as fruitful as a phsyicaly network. You have to create a new profile and re-connect with all your friends, family and colleagues. This process of recreating reputation is an arduous task at best. I know that Google is trying to promote some changes in this space with platforms like opensocial and friendconnect. I feel if I could login to any social network that was part of the larger opensocial platform and bring in all my existing interconnections and information automatically, I would feel much more comfortable joining more networks. However, at this point I have no time or desire to build out my reputation on yet another online property.